Anniversaries
by ProfessorSpork
Summary: Spoilers thru JE. / Five years; five gifts the Doctor gives Rose on the first five anniversaries of their arrival in Pete's World. / "It's just that... well, I rather like the idea of lockets. Keeping someone close to your heart... close to your heart."


Disclaimer: I do not own! As always, take no offense and hire no lawyers.

A/N Fluffy, as always, like a fluffy thing.

* * *

On the first anniversary of their second and final trip to Bad Wolf Bay, the Doctor presents Rose with a locket.

"You—you don't have to wear it if you don't want to," he says quickly, stumbling over his words, "but it's just that… well, I rather like the idea of lockets. Keeping someone close to your heart… close to your heart." (He frowns, the sentence having gotten away from him, and she has to kiss it better.)

It's a curious little trinket, as jewelry goes—Rose half-suspects that he won it from the coin-operated toy machine at Tesco. The hinge falls open all the time, the silver is about as real as what you'd find wrapped around a stick of gum, and it leaves an unflattering ring of green around her neck as it erodes.

Nevertheless, she doesn't take it off if she can help it. She loves everything about it—from the dorky picture of the two of them inexpertly affixed to the inside, to the way it bangs reassuringly against her chest when she runs, like her TARDIS key used to.

Or maybe she just likes being the one of them who has two hearts, for a change.

-

On the second anniversary, he comes round her flat with an old car painted TARDIS-blue and a smile on his face.

"What's all this, then?" she laughs, because it's her job to ask questions.

"Fetch your galoshes, Rose Tyler, because you and I are _going on an adventure._"

It's all the encouragement she needs.

They drive north until they find snow—across the border and up into Scotland, the Doctor breathing life into the jalopy's long-dead radio with a buzz of the sonic. His trusty screwdriver isn't perfect, however, and does little to help when the engine finally gives out on them an hour west of Aberdeen, leaving them just the slightest bit stranded in the middle of nowhere.

The Doctor looks distinctly put out.

"Hey, none of that. You said you wanted an adventure, didn't you?" she asks, bumping him in the shoulder.

"This wasn't exactly what I had in mind."

She grins cheekily at him. "Well, at least you _meant _for us to be in Scotland this time."

"Oi!" he protests, and makes a grab for her side. Not wanting to let him win that easily, she runs—dodging around the car, trying to evade him and his unfairly long legs.

He solves the problem by tackling her into the nearest snow bank.

"What are you going to do now?" he teases, waggling his eyebrows as he keeps her arms pinned to the ground.

She struggles and squirms under his weight. "Make snow angels?" she suggests winsomely.

"_I've got my own right here," he says, leaning down to capture her lips with his…_

"Rose?"

"Mmmm… oh. Sorry—what?"

"You zoned out there for a second. Are you alright? Because if you're too cold I could probably reroute the—Rose."

"Yes?"

"What… what are you doing?"

"Warming myself up."

"Ah," he squeaks.

-

On the third anniversary, he does her laundry for her.

The less said about it, the better.

-

On the fourth anniversary, she comes home to find a bouquet of flowers stuffed into their mailbox.

"It's not that I don't love them," she says as she arranges them in a vase, "but honestly, don't you think you went a _bit _cliché?" She can't keep the smirk off her face.

He shrugs from his spot on the living room floor, where he's tinkering with a piece of almost-but-not-quite-TARDIS. "What can I say? I like my roses in white."

Suddenly she's not smirking anymore. "Doctor—"

"Donna Noble," he interrupts, his back still to her, "made a point of keeping old, new, borrowed and blue things in her closet at all times. Not that she was being presumptuous—_well, _maybe a _bit _presumptuous, I suppose—but it's just that she knew she looked beautiful in white dresses." He turns around to look at her finally, and waves his right hand—his original hand—in a kind of a useless, shy sort of way. "I can't really help it, you see," he says, and she wonders if he knows how emotionally manipulative that tentative little smile of his really is.

She suspects he does, the infuriating man.

-

On the fifth anniversary (which is also not quite their first,) he hands her a familiar-looking key, which gives off a familiar-feeling warmth.

"Right then, Rose Tyler," he says, and something in his tone makes her brain itch, "you tell me, where do you want to go? Backwards or forwards in time. What's it going to be?"

She grins at him. "You think you're so impressive."

"Oh, Rose," he says, sounding bored and self-assured as he settles into the jump seat and kicks his feet up onto the brand-new console, "I am so impressive."

She pokes him in the rib and his knee jerks—knocking a lever into gear, sending them both flying… and they're off.


End file.
